Plenty of different ways to pump, unweight, ride the least windswell downhill, shake it, lead it, use the leech, use the RAF effect, but first of all, you gotta know how, and decide TO.....
RAF effect, shake it slightly, maybe 1 foot max, even front and back hand pressure, making the sail form to deform from static to loaded, and it goes back to static by itself. This get you more results than you would get with a cam, since it adds half a pump to each of yours. Timed of course, not just neantherdahl pumping.
This talk about wave/freestyle vs freeride sails is useless here, since we aren't comparing surf sails with Formula sails. Only in freeride/slalom is a no cam used compareably against a cammed sail.

The cam sails seem to pump better where I sail. Seems to make sense since the sail is more rigid. Camless sails seem to deform when I pump them, and energy input doesn't seem to translate to forward movement well.

As a practical matter, camless sails allow a windsurfer to pump to a plane better. What you're seeing locally (what any of us sees locally) is affected by who we're sailing with. Concerns about the sail deforming are far outweighed by the control and feel that the camless sailor has. The rigidity and stable foil that cams provide fight you when you're using touch to goose a board and rig._________________Michael
http://www.peconicpuffin.com

Camless sails do not deform when you pump them. The opposite, they form into the same sail draft camber as a cammed sail, and then when not loaded, they add to pumping by then deforming to a fatter foil. That's what ADDS to the pumping effect.
As said, many bad recreational sailors use no cams. Most hot shot slalom sailors use cams. Don't mean cams are faster OR plane up sooner, but they do go upwind higher, and downwind lower.

Yeah, you extend and pull back with your rear foot, as that actively engages the fin and allows you to pump the water conceptually much as you would do with air and the sail. Again, it's a subtle kind of input rather than a highly animated sort of thing. It's something that you do to really get things moving, or during lulls to give that little bit extra until the next gust, particularly if you want to keep a high angle of attack.

The type of fin used really makes a big difference. Deeper high aspect slalom and course slalom fins really give you great response pumping, particularly with fins 45 to 50cm and up. Some folks tend to forget that the fin reacts in concert with the sail, board and yourself to leverage the different kinds of power available.

And yes, given a set windspeed, at it's maximum, you can hold a fully cammed race sail easier than a 7+ battenned top end freeride sail. That's' why real racers use the cammed sail, they can hold the bigger sail to get thru turbelance and to create turbulence behind them.

And yes, given a set windspeed, at it's maximum, you can hold a fully cammed race sail easier than a 7+ battenned top end freeride sail. That's' why real racers use the cammed sail, they can hold the bigger sail to get thru turbelance and to create turbulence behind them.

YOU said that, not me.
It's personal preference. Even back in the late '80's, some supposedly fast sailors used no cam sails. Most speed trial's guys used both, and never found one clearly superior to the other.
Slalom sailors, the serious racers, need cams to get back upwind, after their 8 ball downwind heats. But not for the actual race part.
Course racing always favored cammed sails.
Still, nobody can say definitively whether cammed sails are faster, or whether they even plane up sooner, because too many variables are present in each catagory.
Heck, it's still up in the air what is faster, a dedicated slalom board or a fast freeride? No theory or mathmetician's here, what's faster out there in the water. And for whom?

Camless sails do not deform when you pump them. The opposite, they form into the same sail draft camber as a cammed sail, and then when not loaded, they add to pumping by then deforming to a fatter foil. That's what ADDS to the pumping effect.

Did you make a typo somewhere here? You say that it deforms and doesn't deform in the same paragraph.

Yeah, you extend and pull back with your rear foot, as that actively engages the fin and allows you to pump the water conceptually much as you would do with air and the sail. Again, it's a subtle kind of input rather than a highly animated sort of thing. It's something that you do to really get things moving, or during lulls to give that little bit extra until the next gust, particularly if you want to keep a high angle of attack.

The type of fin used really makes a big difference. Deeper high aspect slalom and course slalom fins really give you great response pumping, particularly with fins 45 to 50cm and up. Some folks tend to forget that the fin reacts in concert with the sail, board and yourself to leverage the different kinds of power available.

yes this is what I saw Shredbob do and subsequently tried, for him it seemed to work a tread, me not so well, but then I recall falling off my 2 wheeler the first time I rode it _________________K4 fins
4Boards....May the fours be with you

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